Advertising is the most popular ways to monetize a web site. Site owners put ads on their web sites hoping people would click on them to make revenues through clicks, referrals or however the ad(s) they’re using work. Most of those people, however, don’t realize that a big percentage of their site’s users don’t even see the ads in the first place. In other words, they’re ad-blind. They mentally block-out whatever looks like an ad while they’re surfing online.

The reason behind this is that Internet users develop ad blindness as they get more experienced on the web. They get familiar with how ads are formatted, placed and displayed on web pages, and learn to ignore them and focus on parts of the page where they expect to find relevant information. That’s because, most of the time, ads aren’t interesting nor related to what we’re looking for.

Not all ads are ignored though. According to Jakob Neilsen’s post which discusses this matter, users are more likely to pay attention to ads on search results pages or classifieds site, since they’re related to what they’re looking for. On those kind of pages, ads are considered as contents.

What I will write about here isn’t how to overcome ad blindness, and make more revenue (which is beyond the scope of this blog), but how to avoid proposed solutions that will affect the usability of your site and the overall user experience. Here are some proposed solutions and why you should avoid them:

1. Alternate the colors of your ads

Some suggest that, if you’re using ads that you control (like Google adsense ads), you should alternate your ads’ colors on every page (or refresh), to increase the chance of users noticing them.

I doubt that this actually works, because people tend to ignore parts of the page where ads are expected to be shown. So it’s not about how ads look, but rather where ads are placed.

2. Change ads’ position on every page

Another suggestion is to keep changing the position of ads in almost every page, so that users have a harder time unconsciously learning the ad placements on your pages to ignore them.

This does work actually, but it will also break the consistency of your design, which will make the user experience less pleasant.

3. User an unconventional layout

Some think that, if you use an unconventional layout for your site, users will more likely notice ads and click on them.

That is true, and you will probably get more clicks from one-time users. Regular users, however, will eventually learn your layout and ignore the ads, which leave you with a most likely unusable layout, since you’re not doing things the way users expect to go.

4. Make the ads look like contents

Others suggest that you make your ads look as if they were part of your contents, to basically fool people into clicking on them.

Sure, you will get more clicks, but you will also lose credibility, and your site users’ will feel cheated and frustrated since you’re not taking them where they expect.

5. Use intrusive ads

Some advertisers think that if they use intrusive ads (the annoying ones that pop in front of you), they will get your attention and you will inevitably see the ad. Even when they’re told that people will probably just close the ad and proceed with what they were doing, they would claim that the sub-concious hit of noticing the ad is just enough for them.

In reality though, experienced web users have learned to look for the “close” or “X” button immediately whenever something blocks their view, so they might not even notice the brand of the ad in the first place.

So what’s the solution?

As I said earlier, this is beyond the scope of this blog. But whatever you choose to do, give your contents and site usability a higher priority.

For example, if you have a good spot at the top of the page that you could use for either an ad or a feature, put the feature there, not the ad. You will make more money if your site provides an enjoyable experience. And, besides ad blindness, people are starting to use ad blockers these days, so I wouldn’t use ads at all unless advertisers were directly paying me.

If you provide unique contents and/or services, people will find you, and advertisers will follow (assuming you don’t charge them for it already).